Post by stardiamond on Jun 19, 2023 15:42:29 GMT -5
This covers a lot of ground:
I got an Etsy message from my best customer, a silversmith in New Mexico. She sent me a picture of a pendant she made and wanted to know if I had more of the same material. I can recognize every cab I ever made and I knew that I didn't make it. I went through all my sold items and couldn't find it. She replied it was part of an off Etsy sale. There were two. One in 2020 and one in 2021. When the 2020 order arrived, she couldn't find an item but nothing was asked of me. The 2021 order was for 18 cabs and 15 pairs of earrings. I usually pack sold items in little cardboard jewelry boxes. I can usually fit 6 cabs in a box; two rows of three. I decided to try something different. I cut out three pieces of cardboard and attached everything using double sided exterior tape. Earring pairs were together and everything was lined up. I then took photos of the cardboard
with the attached items and sent her the photos When the package arrived nothing had come loose. The cab I supposedly made was not in the photos. It was either Willow Creek or Tahoma. I sent her a picture of a Tahoma cab that looked similar. What she really wanted was custom work and I don't have any Tahoma slabs. I have a ton of Willow Creek and suggested that she look at WC cabs I've made to see if there was any material she liked.
The 2021 order included a lot of earrings. I don't like cutting earrings because I am not suited to precision work. To make things worse, she negotiated a price of $20 a pair for earrings. I have a current customer who is willing to pay $30 for what is basically one earring to make a ring. The material is Nipomo Marcasite.
It takes about 1.5 times more making a pair of earrings than a regular cabochon. Earrings also need to have a pattern match in addition to a size match. For pricing two things come into play; the market and the cost of material. What a silversmith can ask for a pair of jasper earrings is limited. Since I make cabs as a hobby I don't pay myself an hourly wage. My goal and pricing is to produce cabs that I could sell for three times the cost of material. This effects my pricing and shopping. A good friend of mine's father was a gold smith that only did original work priced his work at double the cost of the gold. One advantage of making earrings is that they can use material that is not suited to regular size cabs.
My goal is to make stuff and selling only is to pay for material and supplies. I had 4 large cabs and 4 pairs pf earrings that I made for the customer but were never ordered. I included a picture of them in the message exchange and I have a sale. No negotiation this time because the pricing had been established in previous sales.
I got an Etsy message from my best customer, a silversmith in New Mexico. She sent me a picture of a pendant she made and wanted to know if I had more of the same material. I can recognize every cab I ever made and I knew that I didn't make it. I went through all my sold items and couldn't find it. She replied it was part of an off Etsy sale. There were two. One in 2020 and one in 2021. When the 2020 order arrived, she couldn't find an item but nothing was asked of me. The 2021 order was for 18 cabs and 15 pairs of earrings. I usually pack sold items in little cardboard jewelry boxes. I can usually fit 6 cabs in a box; two rows of three. I decided to try something different. I cut out three pieces of cardboard and attached everything using double sided exterior tape. Earring pairs were together and everything was lined up. I then took photos of the cardboard
with the attached items and sent her the photos When the package arrived nothing had come loose. The cab I supposedly made was not in the photos. It was either Willow Creek or Tahoma. I sent her a picture of a Tahoma cab that looked similar. What she really wanted was custom work and I don't have any Tahoma slabs. I have a ton of Willow Creek and suggested that she look at WC cabs I've made to see if there was any material she liked.
The 2021 order included a lot of earrings. I don't like cutting earrings because I am not suited to precision work. To make things worse, she negotiated a price of $20 a pair for earrings. I have a current customer who is willing to pay $30 for what is basically one earring to make a ring. The material is Nipomo Marcasite.
It takes about 1.5 times more making a pair of earrings than a regular cabochon. Earrings also need to have a pattern match in addition to a size match. For pricing two things come into play; the market and the cost of material. What a silversmith can ask for a pair of jasper earrings is limited. Since I make cabs as a hobby I don't pay myself an hourly wage. My goal and pricing is to produce cabs that I could sell for three times the cost of material. This effects my pricing and shopping. A good friend of mine's father was a gold smith that only did original work priced his work at double the cost of the gold. One advantage of making earrings is that they can use material that is not suited to regular size cabs.
My goal is to make stuff and selling only is to pay for material and supplies. I had 4 large cabs and 4 pairs pf earrings that I made for the customer but were never ordered. I included a picture of them in the message exchange and I have a sale. No negotiation this time because the pricing had been established in previous sales.